Java de-serialization of enums and valueOf

Question

I've got a distributed system with a serializable enum class with constants that might vary across the system.

Because these classes may be different, valueOf could potentially be called upon deserialization on a constant that doesn't exist, throwing a runtime exception.

I don't believe valueOf can be overridden, or another method custom inserted before valueOf is called during deserialization.

Is there a way to avoid this problem with enums?

Answer 1

The main problem is the fact that you have enum with inconsistant content on your distributed system. The best thing to do is looking at this first.

A palliative would be to use a readObject() method in your sensitive classes and to catch exceptions dues to bad enum values.